Elder Oaks-the Difference between sins and mistakes

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AI2.0
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Elder Oaks-the Difference between sins and mistakes

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This is an excellent Devotional talk given by Elder Oaks in the early 90's. He talks about the difference between sins and mistakes and it is very enlightening. He also gives great counsel for teaching children.

One thing that he said, made me think of this forum as he talks about teaching false doctrine, which is a rather common occurrence here.
The application of the commandments is sometimes difficult for children to understand. As parents we know that we must be constantly teaching our children how to apply the commandments to the varying circumstances of our lives. For example, without explicit teaching they may not understand that stealing services from a long-distance company is just as much a violation of the eighth commandment as stealing inventory from a retail merchant. In some of these teaching efforts, on matters that are genuinely in doubt, parents may need to treat an uninformed or untaught act as the equivalent of a mistake rather than as a sin. We should correct the youthful offenders and promptly teach them correct principles to guide their future actions. Any repetition would then be a transgression.

This redemptive procedure also applies in the definition of the adult transgression of apostasy for teaching false doctrine. Knowing that there may be genuine questions about what is false doctrine, the servants of the Lord have specified a procedure for protecting a member who strays over the line innocently. This kind of apostasy is defined as “persist[ing] in teaching as Church doctrine information that is not Church doctrine after being corrected by their bishops or higher authority” (General Handbook of Instructions 10–3). In other words, the teaching of false doctrine may be classified as a mistake the first time it happens, but it becomes a sin and a subject for Church discipline after those in authority clarify the application of the law to what the member is teaching.

And this warning from Joseph Smith Jr. and a great pithy remark I want to remember for future reference. ;) :
Mistakes can also lead to sins.The Prophet Joseph Smith observed that “there are so many fools in the world for the devil to operate upon, it gives him the advantage oftentimes” (Teachings, p. 331).


The violation of special limits like curfews or missionary rules can make one vulnerable to sin. Or a mistake committed by one person can lead another person into sin in attempting to correct it. The pruning of the flowering crab tree, and countless other mistakes that are the subject of communications between husbands and wives and among parents and children, can be mishandled to the point of producing the wrathful, angry behavior the scriptures call contention. Contention is always a transgression. This was the subject of the apostle Paul’s warning to the parents in Ephesus: “Provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4). The apostle James reminds us that “the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). We must be careful how we point out and correct mistakes in others, lest efforts to correct a small-sized mistake become an overreaction that produces an even larger transgression in us or in those we are attempting to help.
The Prophet Joseph Smith identified another kind of error whose consequences may be more serious than those of some sins. He said that ignorance of the nature of evil spirits had caused many, including some members of the restored Church, to err in following false prophets and prophetesses. In an editorial in the Times and Seasons, the Prophet observed that “nothing is a greater injury to the children of men than to be under the influence of a false spirit when they think they have the Spirit of God” (HC 4:573). By this account, persons innocently misled by false spirits are guilty of error and can be readily welcomed back into the fold when their error has been made known and acknowledged. That very redemptive teaching rests on the scriptural distinction between errors and transgressions.
This is of particular concern on this forum because we have several posters who come here to 'teach' the rest of us what they believe to be truth, but as we look closer at it, we find that their teachings take members away from the gospel and the light of truth, rather than bringing them closer. Or their teachings contradict the teachings of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. According to Joseph Smith Jr. ignorance of the nature of evil spirits can cause members to be deceived by them.

There's a lot of really good stuff in this talk so you might want to read the whole thing.

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/dallin-h ... -mistakes/

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